As the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the British grunge rock band, Bush, Gavin Rossdale has found a majority of his success in the United States. In fact, his band has been widely reviled by his fellow countryman for not being part of the Britpop scene—a criticism Rossdale has accepted because of his revulsion of Britpop music. Accused of being a Nirvana wanna-be cover boy, Rossdale brushed off such digs and wallowed in the massive success he and his band mates achieved overseas.
Rossdale was born in London and raised in Kilburn into a middle class home—his father was a general physician and his mother was a model—but at 12 years-old the domestic bliss was shattered when his parents divorced. He went to live with his father and became interested in music, later forming the band Midnight in his late teens. The band was popular at the clubs, which led to a record deal, but they failed to sell albums after the release of a few singles and soon broke up. In 1992, Rossdale met guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge and formed Bush.
Despite a reputation as being a talented performer, Rossdale was considered damaged goods by the music industry because of his failure to sell records. So difficult was it for the band to get a contract that they had to hold down day jobs to pay the bills (Rossdale was a house painter and video art illustrator.) Then in 1993, music manager Rob Kahane needed acts for his newly established Hollywood Records subsidiary, Acme, and offered a contract that would bring them over to the United States to record. The band gladly signed. Their demo made its way to the Los Angeles-based alternative rock station, KROQ, where the track “Everything Zen” became one of the most requested songs at the time. The constant radio play eventually led to enormous record sales for their first album, Sixteen Stone, which, when all was said and done, sold over 8 million copies and peaked at number 4 on The Billboard 200.
Despite their success, critics of the band accused their first album of sounding too much like Nirvana. For their next release, Razorblade Suitcase, Bush employed the talents of producer Steve Albini—who, ironically, produced Nirvana on In Utero. Albini stripped away the layered effects from the previous album and concentrated on the band’s hard-driving rhythms. The album topped The Billboard 200, proving to critics that their prior success was no fluke. Their third album, Deconstructed, was a cynical release from the band. Their first foray into electronica, the band was blasted by critics because they had previously criticized others for breaking away from their traditional sound. Despite a few good tracks, Deconstructed was a mess, turning off old fans while failing to attract new ones. A fourth effort, The Science of Things, was produced by the original team that worked on their first album, but legalities got in the way of creativity and the two parties split. The Science of Things faired better on the charts than Deconstructed, but failed to live up to its predecessors.
Bush’s fifth album, Golden State, was a return to the simple, hard-driving sound that made them famous, but by the time it was released in 2001, the band had fallen off the radar screen. Peaking at number 22 on The Billboard 200, Golden State failed to recapture the magic of Sixteen Stone or the somber mood of Razorblade Suitcase. Though his band was receding into the dark of night, Rossdale managed to keep his name in the papers—mainly because of his relationship with No Doubt lead singer Gwen Stefani (the two married in 2002). He also began to appear in movies, starting with a supporting role in the Brittany Murphy romantic comedy, “Little Black Book” (2004). Rossdale then appeared in the comic book adaptation, “Constantine” (2005), starring a post-“Matrix” Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton. He was then cast in two other features: the historical sports drama, “The Game of Their Lives” (2005), about the first World Cup soccer match since World War II, and the crime thriller “Red Light Runners” (filmed in 2003), about a gang of thieves shaking down petty criminals to perform bigger heists.